Mental health campaigners have claimed that there is a need for more talking therapies for people with depression.
The government has planned to announce the sites of two talking therapy pilot centers in Doncaster and Newham, aimed at cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in helping people return to work. If it succeeded other centers could also be opened around England.According to the charity Mind says evidence from its helpline callers show 83% take medication while only 6% receive therapy for depression.
The centers would be open to all adults of working age although it would specially target at the one in three people on Incapacity Benefit who have depression in a bid to help them back to work.
In November last year, Lord Layard, a Labour peer and director of the centre for economic performance at the London school of economics, called for 10,000 more therapists should be trained in CBT and a network of 250 dedicated psychological centers set up.
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, set up by the government to make recommendations about NHS care, propose that CBT should be the key treatment for anxiety, depression, depression in children and young people, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The charity also warns that GPs have to give pregnant women who are depressed depression pills instead of therapy because of the shortage although research has suggested that there could be a risk that the baby will be premature, too small or experience withdrawal from the drugs they were exposed to in the womb.
Advertisement
